“I don’t know. I guess I thought it would sound better.”
Kendall’s eyebrows went up.
“Okay,” Berry said, “let’s get this straight. You weren’t out drinking that night but you were at a recital at the Kennedy Center. Sure that’s the truth?”
Warren nodded.
“What time was the recital?”
“Six, I think.”
“Where in the Kennedy Center?”
“The Millennium Stage.”
“What theater is that?”
“It’s not a theater. It’s a stage they set up in the lobby. They have performances just about every night there. It’s free.”
“Who was the pianist?”
“Boris Larkin.”
“What did he play?”
“I don’t know, different things, pieces from well-known operas.”
“Did you speak with him after the performance?”
“No.”
“What time did it end?”
“About seven thirty.”
“That’s pretty early. Did you see Ms. Lee at the Kennedy Center while you were there?”
“No.”
“What did you do after?”
“I had dinner.”
“Where?”
“A little Indian restaurant downtown.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t remember. I felt like Indian food and walked into the place. I never did catch the name.”
“You were alone?”
“Yes.”
“How did you pay?”
“Cash. I gave them cash.”
“They give you a receipt?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember.”
“And then?”
“Then I…then I went back to the apartment and watched TV.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“I understand your agent is in town and staying at the apartment. Was he there?”
“No. I never saw him that night.”
The questioning lasted another fifteen minutes. Berry ended the session by saying, “We’ll be keeping your passport, Mr. Warren.”
“You can’t do that,” Warren almost shouted. “I’m a Canadian citizen!”
Kendall calmed his client and explained that he and the Canadian Consulate would work on his behalf to get the passport back. The attorney reminded Berry that he and his detectives were not to question his client again without his being present.
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Berry assured. “You’re free to go, Mr. Warren, for the moment.”
After Kendall and Warren had left the building, Berry went to his office, where Sylvia Johnson had just arrived.
“What’s with Willie?” Berry asked.
“They’re keeping him overnight, but they ruled out a heart attack. The doctor read the riot act to Willie. His blood pressure is off the chart, and a test showed an enlarged heart.” She laughed. “They told him he has to eat a healthier diet, lose weight, exercise, the works. No more chili dogs, or pizza for breakfast.”
“He’s lucky. It’s a good warning.”
She asked about Warren, and Berry filled her in on how the questioning had gone.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I think we should keep close tabs on Mr. Warren. In the meantime, let’s call it a day. You up for dinner?”
“Sure. And a drink. I’m off duty.”
“So am I. Come on, let’s hoist one for Willie.”
SEVENTEEN
When the rehearsal at the Kennedy Center was over, the director, Anthony Zambrano, assembled the supers for some last-minute comments, which quickly shifted into a discussion of Tosca and Zambrano’s vision of this particular production. Annabel had joined Mac on the stage, where he was sitting with his boss, GW’s president, Wilfred Burns, the other academicians-cum-supers, and Ray Pawkins in a semicircle around the director. It struck Mac that aside from him and his professorial colleagues, everyone else was well versed in Tosca and opera in general, and eager to display their knowledge. He felt a little out of it as Zambrano spoke in baroque terms about how he intended to break new ground and set a higher standard for future directors of the Puccini masterpiece.
“Is Tosca considered his best work?” Mac asked, wanting to have something to offer.
Zambrano’s face lit up. “An excellent question. But who is to judge which work by a genius is his best? For me, I find the raw emotional power and dramatic foundation of Tosca to be compelling. But he also wrote Madame Butterfly and La Boheme, among other magisterial works. Who can say?”
“Is Tosca the most widely produced opera?” another super asked.
“Strangely not,” Zambrano replied, chewing his cheek as he sought a basis for his response. “I believe—and correct me if you know better—that Madame Butterfly has been the most produced opera in the past ten years, at least in the United States. La Boheme? They are one and two, if I’m not mistaken. But Tosca is Puccini’s strongest work. Sarooodledum, as George Bernard Shaw termed it—he was fond of playing on the name of the playwright Victorien Sardou, whose play, La Tosca, was the basis for Puccini’s operatic version.”
It was enough of an answer for Mac, but Zambrano segued into his analysis of how Puccini’s operas stacked up against the operas of Mozart, Verdi, Bartók, and other familiar names, as well as some that weren’t. Mac’s mind wandered, his eyes going to that portion of the main stage where Charise Lee’s blood had been spilled. Someone had attempted to clean it, leaving a milky circle around where the stain had been.
Zambrano finished his dissertation, thanked everyone for coming, and announced that future rehearsals would be at Takoma Park, until the technical and dress rehearsals, which would be held at the Kennedy Center.
Genevieve Crier, who’d been there at the beginning of the rehearsal and quickly disappeared, returned as Mac and Annabel were about to leave with Pawkins.
“So glad I caught you,” Genevieve said in her lilting British accent. “Did it go well?”
“Sure,” Pawkins said. “How can a supers rehearsal go bad?”
“I can think of a way,” said Annabel as they walked through the Hall of Nations, the flags of every nation with which the United States has diplomatic relations lining the spacious public area.
“Gracious, yes,” said Genevieve. “Having a super murdered certainly ranks as…well, I don’t know, something going bad.”
“It didn’t happen at a rehearsal,” Pawkins said, sounding annoyed at having been challenged.
In her relentless cheerfulness, Genevieve didn’t seem to have picked up on the former detective’s shift in mood. As they stopped at one of the exit doors, she reached into her bulging shoulder bag and pulled out a magazine.
“May we have a drum roll, please,” she said, handing it to Pawkins. “Page one thirteen. You’re now famous, Mr. Pawkins.”
“What’s this?” Annabel asked.
“An advance copy of the latest Washingtonian. Our Raymond Pawkins, former Homicide detective on the city’s mean streets, more recently art and music connoisseur, is all over the place.”
Pawkins opened to the page Genevieve had cited and held it up for Mac and Annabel to see. Looking back at them was a large color photograph of Pawkins leaning casually against the set from Washington National Opera’s previous production, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, more popularly known as The Magic Flute.
“Grrrr,” Genevieve growled. “I had to positively break his arm to get him to agree to the interview and photo shoot. The editor loved the idea, a profile of a hard-nosed Homicide detective pursuing the arts, including performing as a super in our productions. It’s such good press.”
“You didn’t tell us about the article,” Annabel said to Pawkins.
“My natural modesty wouldn’t allow it,” he said, hand to his heart.
“I can’t wait to read it,” Annabel said.
“Here,” Pawkins said, giving it to her. “I already know what I said. Anyone up
for a drink?”
“Not us,” Mac said. “We need an early night.”
“Genevieve?” Pawkins asked.
“I thought you’d never ask—or forgive me.”
As Mac and Annabel started to walk away, Genevieve said, “Annabel, don’t forget the Opera Ball meeting tomorrow.”
“I won’t,” Annabel said over her shoulder. “It’s on the calendar.”
Mac walked Rufus, and mixed his own blend of coffee for the morning, before changing into pajamas and joining Annabel in bed.
“A nice early night,” she said. “Good book?” He’d picked up where he’d left off in E. L. Doctorow’s The March.
“Excellent,” he replied, glancing at what she was reading, the magazine Pawkins had given her. “Any startling revelations about our gadfly detective?”
“Is that how you view him?”
“Well, he seems to enjoy a little bit of this, a little bit of that. A dabbler.”
“Listen to this,” she said, rearranging herself so that she knelt beside him. “It says that although he spent his law enforcement career in Homicide, he became involved in a couple of cases handled by MPD’s art squad.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Mac said. “He told me he does PI work in cases involving musical manuscripts and works of art.”
“The writer cites this one case that I certainly recall. I’m sure you do, too. Remember when that musicologist from Georgetown University was murdered? Aaron Musinski?”
“Sure. It was big news.”
“Pawkins was the lead detective on it, according to this article.”
“As I recall, there was controversy about some missing music. Do they mention that in the article?”
“No. It’s just a few lines summing up some of the big cases he’d handled while a cop.”
She hopped out of bed. “I’m going to Google it,” she said on her way to the study, where one of their two computers was located. He followed and stood behind her as she typed in “Aaron Musinski.” A full page of sites in which the subject was mentioned came up on the screen, with dozens of additional possibilities listed on subsequent pages. She clicked on the first site, and one of the Washington Post articles about the murder appeared. They read in silence. She pulled up other sites, too. When they were finished reading, she spun around in her chair. “Fascinating,” she said, but without much animation.
The Aaron Musinski murder had occurred six years earlier. Musinski, a professor at Georgetown University, was considered one of the world’s leading experts on the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He’d written extensively about Mozart, and his most recent book, published the year in which he was murdered, was considered the seminal work on the subject.
Musinski was no genteel academician. Short and built like a wrestler, his head shaved, he was a pugnacious, intensely private man in his personal life who scorned the views of fellow Mozart scholars and wasn’t reticent about attacking them in magazine and journal articles and other venues. Washingtonian magazine, in one of its yearly “Best and Worst” features, listed him among the most disliked professors in the D.C. area. His sour relationship with colleagues at the university was openly known and discussed; his tenure was assured, however, because of his stature in his field and his ability to generate large donations to Georgetown’s Department of Music. His frequent absences—he spent considerable time in Europe—were overlooked for the same reasons. One wealthy donor, who requested anonymity, told a magazine writer, “Every time Professor Musinski asks for a contribution, I’m afraid that if I decline he’ll grab me in a headlock and throw me to the ground. I don’t mean that literally, of course, but it sometimes seems that way.”
On the day of his death, Musinski had taught a graduate seminar at the school. According to his students, he’d seemed especially distracted and short-tempered, although as one of them said, it was hard to make such distinctions with the professor. His fuse was always short, and he wore his disdain for his students on the sleeve of the black cardigan sweater and black T-shirt he seemed to never be without.
Others told the police that they’d seen him hurry from the building immediately following the seminar, get into his vintage red MG sports car, and race from the parking lot.
That was the last time Aaron Musinski was seen alive. His only known family member in the Washington area, a niece named Felicia James, called 911 at ten-thirty that night to report a break-in and murder at her uncle’s home, a quaint, albeit poorly maintained Victorian town house on Georgetown’s Q Street. When the police arrived, led by Detective Raymond Pawkins, Ms. James was sitting on a weathered white wrought-iron love seat in the small garden at the rear of the house, a jumbled jungle of vines, heavily laden trees, and tall grass. She was in shock, and it took gentle prodding by Pawkins to convince her to lead them to her uncle’s body.
They followed her inside through a back door off a moss-covered brick patio, which led to a small kitchen. The rest of the house’s first floor had been converted into an office and study, except for a small card table off the kitchen at which he’d obviously taken his meals. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases covered each wall. A series of crude folding tables overflowed with books and papers, which were also strewn on threadbare Oriental rugs with frayed edges. Briefcases and shoulder bags of various sizes and shapes were piled in a corner.
His body rested on a pile of newspapers. His blood had soaked into the papers, prompting Pawkins to think of the old riddle: What’s black and white and red (read) all over? Newspapers. Musinski had been bludgeoned to death. The weapon, a bloodied fireplace poker, lay next to him.
“Do you live here, too?” Pawkins asked the niece.
“No, but I visit my uncle often. He lives alone and I worry about him.” She cried.
Other detectives searched upstairs, where the bedrooms were in equal disarray.
“When did you last speak with your uncle?” Pawkins asked.
“This morning. I usually call him before he leaves for school.”
“Anything unusual about him this morning?”
“No. He sounded tired. He’d come back from London two days earlier and was still suffering jet lag. But no, he was his usual self.”
The detective was aware of Musinski’s reputation from having read stories, and hesitated to ask his next question: “Did your uncle have any enemies that you’re aware of?”
“He was—my uncle was a controversial figure,” she replied, “but I can’t imagine anyone disliking him enough to want to kill him. He was actually a very sweet man.”
As only a favorite niece could view him, Pawkins thought.
Evidence technicians and someone from the ME’s office arrived and went through their required tasks. While they did—and while Ms. James retreated to the garden—Pawkins went through the contents of the large space Musinski had devoted to his life’s work. How could the man find anything in this mess? was what he thought as he picked up, read, and dropped materials back where they’d been on the tables. Two hours later, he fetched Musinski’s niece from the garden.
“You all right to drive home?” he asked.
“Yes, I’ll be fine. The shock is wearing off. All I care about now is that whoever did this pay the price.”
“We’ll do our best to make that happen,” Pawkins said. “By the way, did your uncle have a will?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s the beneficiary?”
“I am.”
“I see. We’ll be wanting to talk to you again, Ms. James.”
“Of course. I want you to know that I loved my uncle very much.”
“I don’t doubt that for a minute,” Pawkins said.
As he walked her to her car, patrolmen were stringing yellow crime-scene tape around the house, while neighbors peered anxiously from their front steps and through windows. “The house will be off-limits for a day or two,” Pawkins advised. “But if you want to come back, call me and I’ll arrange for someone to accompany you.”
“Tha
nk you. I appreciate that. Good night.”
Pawkins spent the better part of the following day at the house, and after a dinner break, he returned and continued to search for clues as to who might have murdered Aaron Musinski. At the same time, he methodically examined some of the contents of the professor’s working space. It was a treasure trove of scholarly works on music, with much of it devoted to his favorite subject. Pawkins pulled down one of the books Musinski had written on the musical genius Mozart’s life and read a few chapters. The man certainly knew his stuff, Pawkins recognized, and Musinski didn’t hesitate to harshly condemn the conclusions of others.
Three days later, Pawkins received a call from an obviously distraught Felicia James.
“What can I do for you?” the detective asked.
“I’m at my uncle’s house. You must come right away.”
“Whoa, slow down. You sound upset. What’s going on there?”
“Please, Detective, it’s very important.”
Ms. James met him at the door. Her face mirrored the distress in her voice. They went to the main room that had served as Musinski’s study and office. Ms. James handed Pawkins an opened envelope. The address indicated that it had been sent to her home, and was marked REGISTERED, RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED.
“What’s this?” Pawkins asked.
“Read it. It’s been at the post office. I have a box there. I didn’t have the energy to pick up my mail before today.”
The return address was Aaron Musinski’s. Pawkins opened the envelope and read the one-page letter it contained.
“Wow!” he said, handing it back to her.
“It’s not here,” she said flatly, indicating the room with a sweep of her hand.
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve looked everywhere. I picked up Uncle Aaron at the airport when he returned from London. He’d gone there to meet with a friend, another Mozart expert. My uncle and this friend had worked together for years searching for missing Mozart scores. Uncle Aaron was an expert on all of Mozart’s works—operas, symphonies, string quartets, even the one ballet he wrote. But his special interest was in a series of string quartets supposedly written by Mozart with his idol, Franz Joseph Haydn. Those scores have never been seen by anyone, at least as far as the world knew. But as you can see by the letter, Uncle Aaron and his colleague in London found them.” She leaped up from her chair and exclaimed, “They actually found them! Do you know how monumentally important that is?”
Murder at the Opera Page 12